The Quebecois city of Montreal has long been known as a hotbed of creativity -- home of Cirque du Soleil and a hub for companies in the online gaming and special effects industries, not to mention its place as a financial and trade capital.And now that commitment to creativity is spurring the city to explore a range of unique new smartphone apps and other startup-generated initiatives that leverage sensors, data collection and analysis, and machine learning to deal with snow removal, ever-increasing traffic and other municipal challenges. One Innocite MTL startup Key2Access, http://key2access.com is testing an app to make it safer for disabled people as they cross the street. Another of the startups, Infra.AI, http://infra.ai intends to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to scan high resolution images of the city’s streets and buildings to find sagging bridge spans, dying street trees or potholes over a foot in size.